false idols
SUPERPOWERS, CORRUPTION AND LIES…
THE BOYS 18 show 2019 available NOW Amazon Prime
With Marvel continuing to make billions of bucks at the box office, this dark, subversive show based on the comic series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson feels like a direct riposte to the current dominance of the superhero genre.
Set in a world where caped crusaders – or “supes” – exist and are universally adored, its plot is set in motion when average guy Hughie (Jack Quaid) suffers collateral damage from a superpowered accident. This sends him down a dark path involving the supes-hating avenger (lower case) Billy Butcher (Karl Urban); soon, he and we discover that the Justice League-like team The Seven – headed by a psycho-Superman called Homelander (Antony Starr) are a corrupt bunch of morally bankrupt narcissists with a shit-hot PR team.
The series is grittier and more grounded than producers Seth Rogen
and Evan Goldberg’s other Ennisadapted hit Preacher, but shares the same penchant for ultraviolence and black humour. Urban has the most fun and the best lines as the abrasive Butcher, dropping concussion grenades as freely as he does c-bombs.
There’s some lazy psychology late on in the series, and the show seems more interested in setting up the already commissioned Season 2 than providing any plot closure now. Still, this is a twist on the superhero formula that’s so bracing and relevant, you’ll never look at your comic-book idols in the same way again. Matt Looker